O Beautiful Dust — Lenten Prayers & the Gospels’ genderqueer water bearer

In O Beautiful Dust, RW Walker explores what difference traditional, queer, and Christ-centred common prayer might make in a chaotic and divided world. Avery had the honor of narrating the audiobook put out by Squirrel House Publishing — and they're offering A FREE COPY of that audiobook to the first 10 people to email them for it! Listen to the episode (or read along in the transcript) for more details. In this episode, Avery shares 6 of the over 40 prayers contained in O Beautiful Dust — and offers some cultural context behind one of those pieces, which explores the story of the gender non-conforming water bearer to whom Jesus sends his disciples shortly before the Last Supper. Visit https://obeautifuldust.carrd.co/ for all the links for where to purchase RW Walker's book, as well as for info about the author, narrator, and publisher. (This page is still being updated as more purchasing links go live in the coming days.) And if you want to watch Peterson Toscano's film Transfigurations: Gender Outlaws in the Bible, click here! Talking Points: (0:00 - 2:13) Baha'i fast & Christian Lent (2:14 - 7:10) Introducing RW Walker and his book, O Beautiful Dust; Avery as narrator of the audiobook (7:11 - 12:47) Historical context for the first poem — the gender nonconforming water bearer of the synoptic Gospels (12:48 - 14:00) Poem 1: "Carrying Water" (14:01 - 16:05) Poem 2: "God's Reputation" (16:06 - 17:22) Poem 3: "My Delight Is in You" (17:23 - 19:15) Poem 4: "Help Us to Be Wise" (19:16 - 20:50) Poem 5: "When I Grow Up" (20:51 - 22:32) Poem 6: "Jesus, Be with My People" (22:33 - end) Wrapping up